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| Double Decker bus ride through Porto Alegre |
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| Leonell from Tunel Verde baptizing his kids |
Dear Family,
I am glad that Thiago and Daniel are talking to you guys and are happy! I didn’t get to see Daniel in Pelotas but I talked to him on the phone. He is getting very excited to serve a mission! I am so happy that Thiago is doing well too. I will have to mark one Saturday to visit him and the Tunel verde members.
So this past Tuesday we had zone conferences with everyone
here in Porto Alegre,
about 80 missionaries. It was great! President started the conference talking
about how we need to bury our weapons of war like the Anti Nephi Lehites. We
had a fake tombstone and grave and "buried" some weapons that cause
us to be disobedient or distracted from our focus. Then the senior couple
Burnett talked about etiquette and our houses. We then had a break. After the
break we gave our training about invitations and following up. To talk about
invitations we gave an invitation to everyone, inviting them to participate in
our training. I believe that I already explained everything about our training
to you in the last letter, but it was a success :) the missionaries were able
to participate and practice a lot. Following the church’s official method of
training, we gave half of the time, about 40 minutes, to practice. After this
we divided into districts and half went to have lunch at a restaurant close to
here and the other half had district meetings to make plans and goals to apply
what was taught in their areas. After about 40 minutes they switched.
The next day in the morning we got a bus to Pelotas to start splits with some district
leaders to see their work and help out. I stayed with Elder Olpin in the Simões
sul area, very close to the center of Pelotas.
The next day we had the same conference but in Pelotas with the other half of the mission.
It is awesome being able to see all of the missionaries and friends in just a
few days. When we got to Pelotas
we ate at a churrascaria called Lobão "big wolf" using extra money we
got from some members for lunch when they couldn’t give us lunch in their
house. They had everything! Meat with jelly, meat with natural yogurt and
strawberry, melted cheese with caramel, and much, much more. Oh and salmon with
a maracuja (passion fruit) sauce....we ate ourselves silly.
Well you guessed right mom, with so much to do for the
mission there is little time to work in our area. But some great things are happening!
We just received a new ward mission leader, Márcio, who is awesome! He just
moved into our ward and is married with 4 boys. He was called this Sunday...yesterday,
but we have been guessing that it would be him for about a week. He is super
excited to get things running and to do a lot of activities. In our ward
counsel yesterday we presented for everyone "natal branco" and a 40
day fast. Natal Branco is a "white Christmas", someone from our ward
will fast everyday to help find a family that can be baptized for Christmas.
The ward counsel was very special. Everyone was excited and ready to go. The 40
day fast starts today with brother Henrique. We called him before lunch and
shared a scripture with him and thanked him for doing this and all his help, we
will do this everyday with the member that will fast that day. The idea of the
missionary work changed after the counsel yesterday, the members now know that
they need to find the investigators and families and we need to teach them,
something big is happening in our ward :) we are going to pass this idea to the
whole mission. Oh, and the best thing ever, everyone is excited!!
Wow, let me know how Brandon´s debate goes.
Daniel is very lucky to be able to hear Elder Anderson, tell
him to take notes and send me a copy. This could be very valuable to us. We don’t
have any visits marked yet from a general authority, We only know that we will
receive a visit from the Brasil presidency in February it looks like.
Oh and it is 2:30 in the afternoon here, I think it is a 5
hour difference, the time changed on Sunday for us.
Hey how have the presidential election debates been?
President Castro likes to mention it every now and then. Let me know!
Little Wayne
is looking so cute!! I am so excited to meet him :) Elder Kunzler joked saying
he is "Lil´Wayne".
How are things there? I can´t think of anything specific to
ask about. How is Bjorn? Dane? and the Lbergs? Send my love that way.
I love you all and am very happy to be here working! We have a meeting with President to plan the
transfers in a few minutes...tchau!
Elder Bradley J. Dawson
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